


We fall, we fall, we fall

by tarquin



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M, minecraft au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:13:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarquin/pseuds/tarquin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're leaving today, so it only makes sense for Gavin to goad him into having one last adventure. Michael thinks it was worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We fall, we fall, we fall

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few days after the second part of horses came out but put off posting it for a while. I tried to fix all the things that changed, though. Also this is going along with Gavin's comment in Creeper Census that Achievement City has a "Higher government" that they work for. Thanks for the fic fodder, Gavin.

He should be asleep.

Outside the sky is dark, its edges tinged with pink and violet but still with a wash of stars draped in navy blue overhead. Crickets are still singing loudly and the only signs of life beyond them is the rustle of grass in the fields outside the town. The moon still grows bright, no longer in the apex of the sky but still a ways away from setting.

Michael should be asleep, and he knows this because the day ahead of them will be long and exhausting. The last of the packing and tearing down has to be done by midday so that they can leave as soon as possible be well away from the settlement by the time dusk falls.

But he’s not asleep, and with every second that his mind crawls out of its hazy dream state and into reality, he knows he won’t be going back to bed anytime soon.

They’re leaving today.

 

It feels strange, even in his head, when he tells himself that they’re going home. Home, as far as he’s concerned, is this shack, the one he’d called dibs on a couple of months ago when their team had stumbled upon this tiny abandoned town. It had become home the second he’d kicked the door in and found a small, cozy room that had neither broken windows nor holes in the roof. And hell, after weeks of sleeping next to everyone else in dug out caves and holes in the ground, just having a place to call his own had been enough.

Their team, consisting of their leader Geoff, their sighters Jack and Ray, Ryan the animal husbandrist, Gavin the destructions specialist and himself- the defense, had set out from their homeland, a place that had been branded Achievement City. The goal had been to seek out an anomaly that had been spotted out far, far past their normal borders and to see if these new creatures, mobs they were called, were hostile or otherwise.

And after weeks of traipsing through tundra and jungle, the small group had come across their quarry. Herds upon herds of horses, not yet identified by Achievement City officials, grazed in fields just outside the abandoned city. Once they’d found out the horses were only cautious of humans but not to the point of danger, the group had quickly received their new task: to tame and study the creatures for as long as time required.

 

That had all been months ago, and in that time they’d managed their goal without a hitch. The horses quickly grew used to their presence, and then even interested in it. While most of the wild ones watched them from afar, a few grew bold enough to investigate, even let the boys ride them once they’d learned to stretch leather into saddles. A particularly racy rendezvous between Geoff and Jack’s horses had led to a tawny colt being born, and subsequently there had been a very emotional goodbye as it turned away from human hands and instead chose to live free on the plains.

And it had been good. It had been challenging, but as hard as it ever got it was never unrewarding. In the time they spent camped in the small village they grew used to it, they made it their own. Jack had had the idea of putting up a barn for their tamer horses, and one day Ray emerged from the mines carting four hefty piles of gold and a piece of obsidian to boot.

By no means did any of them not think of this place as home any more.

 

But, Michael thinks to himself as he gives up on the last hopes of falling back asleep, as much as he doesn’t want to leave this place behind, he’s ready for home- his old home, again.

 

Confident that there’s no one around to see him he gives his bed a farewell pat before sitting up, yawning in the early morning light. Outside he can just see the houses around his, Ray’s directly across from, then Ryan’s next to that. The houses are lit up by torches to keep dangers away but otherwise all is dark and motionless. It’s peaceful, and his legs start to itch.

Further down the road Michael can see the stables, just barely lit at the end of the gravel path. Unsurprisingly his mind wanders to Hidalgo, the mare that had only bucked him off four times before he’d slapped a saddle on it and ridden it tame. Creamy white and with a sharp attitude, the two had become fast partners.

Michael sighs, knowing almost too soon that he needs to pull his shoes on because he’s a sentimental jackass who needs to say goodbye. 

Their horses, being new and relatively unstudied so far, would not complete the journey with them back to Achievement City. They would be dropped off at a place where they could be monitored by people who could better study them, and while the group would be able to visit them it probably wouldn’t be often, what with their weeks already so tightly scheduled.

Michael pulls on his usual hoodie to combat against the morning chill, frowning to himself. So what if likes his dumb horse who kicks too much and has bitten Gavin on more than one occasion? He’ll hate to see her go.

He pulls his sword out of its hilt once he’s dressed and surveys the streets outside. It hadn’t taken long for them to light their settlement up with torches until it glowed, but it never seems to be enough to ward off all the monsters that stalk the night. 

In fact, Michael’s not entirely sure if it wasn’t a zombie or a skeleton that woke him up in the first place. He always has trouble resting when there are monsters nearby.

But the coast seems clear as he pushes open the door, stretching and letting out puffs of white breath in the crisp air. The gravel crunches to punctuate the steps under his feet and everything feels peaceful, a fleeting mosaic of their time outside their usual borders.

That is, before there’s a rustle inside of the stables, and Michael goes straight out of quiet complacence into attack mode. 

He lifts his sword into position as he inches towards the door, daring any one of the beasts that haunt their forests to be inside. Skeletons and their arrows, zombies and their teeth, creepers and the TNT they have perpetually lodged in their gut. None are safe against the mighty Mogar.

He takes a moment to steady himself before he throws open the doors and charges and first thing he spots is creeper green. He’s lucky that his first instinct upon seeing that color is to back away because even as he swings in the general direction of the beast he sees all too soon that it’s Gavin. 

The boy, always wearing his creeper-inspired clothes, turns with wide eyes and a yelp as he brings the feed bucket in his hands up to cover his face. Behind him the dappled gray horse called Grisham bays at the attack, kicking wildly in his stall. Michael drops his sword, Gavin shouts, and the horse’s eyes go wide with fear while the others around it watching with varying levels of concern.

“Son of a bitch, Gavin.” Michael barks, exasperated. 

Gavin, no longer under attack, laughs in a short burst before his tone takes an edge.

“Je-sus, Michael, what are you-?”

Michael doesn’t get a chance to answer though, not before Gavin drops his bucket, contents and all, and turns to the panicking horse behind him. Whereas Michael had taken to a horse with more than a little attitude, Gavin’s stallion had come with a penchant for spooking, and did so frequently. In turn it hadn’t taken long for Gavin to become used to calming it down and Michael watches, incredulous, as Gavin runs his hands up and down its neck and lowers its head until it doesn’t look like it’s ready to bolt anymore. When Gavin gives it a few pats on the side of its face, Michael decides he’s waited long enough.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” He asks, arms folded. Gavin turns, yawning widely.

“I have trouble sleeping, you know that.” He says with a shrug. “I should ask you the same thing.” 

Michael frowns, feeling as though he should have anticipated this being turned around on him. 

“Couldn’t sleep.” He says after a moment. “Too many things going on in my head.”

“Welcome to my experience.” Gavin says with a wince, moving behind Michael to close the stable doors. “Insomnia, surprisingly, not a good time.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Michael says.

“So you thought you’d just come out here and be one with the horses?” Gavin asks as he goes back to tending to Grisham.

“If by that you mean get ready to say goodbye,” Michael says with a small eye roll. He walks over to where Hidalgo watches him with sleepy eyes, reminding him that he’s the one who can’t sleep, not her. Michael runs a hand up and down her nose sympathetically.

“Yeah.” Gavin says as though he’s suddenly had an epiphany. “It’s really sad, isn’t it? Leaving these guys behind.”

“Well. We’ll still be able to see them.” Michael says out of reflex, but he knows what Gavin means. 

“It won’t be the same.”

“Yeah. But we get to go home.”

“That’s true.” Gavin says, perking up a little. “Back to Achievement City... Do you think home will be the same?”

Michael shrugs. “Probably. Maybe a little more boring now that we’re not roughing it.”

“Well I’ll still be there, Michael. And you should know by now that as long as I’m there life will never be boring.”

Michael’s mouth quirks into a half smile while Gavin lets out a stunted giggle. That’s Gavin’s hobby, saying those kinds of things. Little off the tongue quips that shouldn’t sound so… meaningful, but Gavin full well knows they do. He shows this afterwards by monitoring Michal’s reaction, and not long after snickering at it.

At first Michael had been wary of the little times Gavin would say these things, not knowing where they were coming from or what they exactly meant, but over time the pattern had grown frequent and Michael learned that it was just another one of the million ways Gavin tried to get his goat. 

“Okay.” Michael snorts. “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

Gavin laughs and then turns his attention back to Grisham. Michael returns to trying to have the peaceful goodbye with Hidalgo he’d envisioned when he got up to visit her in the first place.

It doesn’t work.

“Do you wanna go for one more run, Michael?” Gavin asks, seemingly out of the blue. Michael looks at him, frowning.

Michael looks at him, hoping Gavin can see his incredulousness in the early morning light. “You’re crazy. The sun’s not even up, there’s gonna be zombies and shit everywhere.” 

“Psh, nah.” Gavin says. “It’s getting lighter by the minute. And with the two of us on horses with swords? It’ll be a good time!”

“It’s still stupid.” Michael says, though he can’t help the way his fingers twitch when he thinks of holding on to Hidalgo’s reins. It is a bad idea. The fact that Gavin came up with it cements that it’s a bad idea.

“Aww, come on! After today it’ll all be slow walks on paths and in gates. Team Nice Dynamite deserves to have one last adventure.”

As soon as he plays the Nice Dynamite card Michael knows he’s serious. It’s his trump card, his last resort in goading Michael to do something stupid. And even though every time he uses it they end up lost underground or, more than once, on fire, it still works like a charm.

Michael rolls his eyes. “You’re a fucking idiot.” He says, reaching for Hidalgo’s saddle.

Gavin lets out an excited woop, moving to let Grisham out of his stall. In the time it takes Michael to get his horse saddled and ready Gavin is already doing figure eights outside, waiting until Michael and steed appear. Michael pulls his hoodie up over his ears to combat the cold and Gavin pulls his scarf over his face, and together the two of them head for the city outskirts.

 

“I wanna go fast, Michael.” Gavin says, steering the both of them in the direction of the sunrise. In front of them the land is mostly flat and it goes on for what looks like forever. In the far distance Michael knows that there’s woodland, but all he can see for the moment is prairie glowing golden in the low sun. It’s the best place to ride and they both know it, and Michael starts to feel adrenaline in his gut as Hidalgo sways underneath him.

“Then, Gavin,” he says decisively, “Let’s go.”

It doesn’t take long for Michael to decide that they’ve made the right decision. Right off the bat Hidalgo is at her best, acclimating from a walk to a trot to a full scale run within seconds. Michael grips her tightly, clinging to her saddle and sucking in every breath he can before every jostle of her body knocks the wind out of him. It’s clunky at first but they soon get their bearings, her hooves pounding on the earth, streamlined with the wind. Underneath him he can feel her breathing, panting, her body moving smooth like a machine.

He feels alive.

Beside him Gavin and his horse look to be doing just as well, Gavin leaned forward, his scarf blown back by the breeze, a wide grin on his face. It takes Michael a second to notice it but he soon sees that Gavin is laughing, the sound swallowed up by the wind. Michael smiles as well, and as the world narrows to a blur on either side of them he feels Gavin’s giddiness like it’s contagious. Laughter bubbles up from his gut and it escapes him in a howl, one that Gavin hears. 

The boy in creeper-green clothing turns to him and his eyes are glowing wild. They’re here in freedom, outside of boundaries and reason, above the earth and even if it feels like he’s breathing ice into his lungs and any misstep could spell disaster, Michael only feels the fire in his veins as he turns and directs Hidalgo against the sun washed plains.

 

They run the horses ragged, until their manes are damp with sweat and their breathing is heavy. Once Michael’s eyes start to burn from the wind and Gavin has a coughing fit over the temperature they steer away from the plains, into the woods where a stream cuts through. Michael speaks in little comforts to Hidalgo who ignores him mostly, choosing instead to head for the water and drink.

Michael drops down next to her and his legs are jelly, shivering under his weight. He feels all kinds of adrenaline and lightness, like his mind is still rocketing over the ground while his body is a forgotten idea. He plunks down on the ground a few feet away from her and lets his body return to itself. Dew soaks through his clothes and he shivers as it brushes against the spot between his shirt and his pants. He’s smiling.

“That was crazy.” He says loud enough for Gavin to hear. “That was… holy shit.”

Gavin, on the other hand, hops off Grisham not far away then hobbles away from the rest of them, coughing and gagging until his body acclimates to the not so high speeds or temperatures. Michael takes this as an opportunity to point and laugh at him until Gavin wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve and joins him, sitting close to him in the grass.

“That was,” Gavin says, pausing to burp but not finishing his sentence. Michael laughs again.

“Yeah, it was.”

Beside them the horses dip their heads to drink from the river and the sun is just starting to illuminate the leaves above the trees. Light and tall shadows surround them, the smell of fresh earth burns in Michael’s lungs. Beside him, Gavin sighs contentedly.

“I’m happy we did that, boi.” He says, using another one of his nicknames for Michael. He’s smiling, not widely but the happiness is etched into his face, the way his lips are tight, his cheeks flushed red. His eyes are wide and glowing and focused on nothing in particular and it doesn’t occur to Michael that he’s staring until Gavin glances at him and his smile widens.

“What.” Michael asks. Gavin’s shoulders start to shake and Michael pulls himself into an upright position. Gavin’s got his knees pulled close to his chest and he’s wriggling into full-blown laughter. 

“What is it?” Michael’s laughing too, just because.

“I’m just…” Gavin says. “I’m happy, Michael.”

“Oh.” Michael pauses. “Me too.”

He leaves Gavin to have his giggle fit and returns to watching the sky through the gaps in the leaves. It’s getting lighter now, he thinks, and the others will be waking soon. And while they probably won’t worry when they find the boys and their horses gone, that won’t stop them quirked eyebrow questions and snide smiles when they return. Not that either of the boys will mind, it’s nothing they haven’t been jokingly taunted about before.

Michael’s deep enough in thought to not notice Gavin’s eyes on him at first, so focused on the pattern of light breaking through the leaves that realizing Gavin’s watching him startles him back to reality. Michael blinks away his thoughts and trains his eyes on Gavin, who turns away a second later.

“Seriously, what?” He asks. Idly he lifts a hand to check his hair for leaves or bugs, but Gavin just shakes his head.

“Then what the hell is it?” He asks, frowning. “You keep fuckin’ smiling, you’ve been doing it all morning. You’re freaking me out.”

Gavin’s not freaking him out in the slightest, and in fact seeing him so unabashedly happy is making him twice as so. But Michael knows that when Gavin’s embarrassed about something the absolute last thing he’ll do is say it proudly. He’ll feign ignorance, change the subject, do anything humanly possible to keep his thoughts buried. 

Michael’s favorite hobby is pulling those words out into the open air.

Gavin makes more of an effort to not look at Michael, to the point where it’s almost comedic. He’s staring at his knees and Michael thinks that his skin is redder around his cheeks, moreso than before.

“Gavin.” Michael says, voice dangerously close to serious.

Gavin’s hands ball into fists and Michael almost thinks he’s mad, but when the boy speaks again his voice is high and wavery, like he’s swallowing a laugh. 

“I already told you, dummy. I’m happy.”

“Happy, or losing your mind?” Michael pries.

That’s when Gavin turns to face him. That’s when he bits his lower lip for half of a heartbeat and even though he’s looking in Michael’s direction he’s not meeting his eyes. That’s when Michael’s heart starts to beat a little faster.

“Michael,” He says, suddenly sheepish. Michael bites the inside of his cheek very, very quickly. “When we get back to Achievement City, do you think things will go back to normal?”

That hadn’t been the question Michael was anticipating and he swallows quickly.  
“Uh, yeah.” He says after a pause. “I mean, like we said before. It’ll still be the same, and you’ll be there to keep it from being boring.”

“Right.” Gavin says softly. Michael evens his breathing.

 

In Achievement City, under Geoff’s house, there is a storeroom filled with resources, everything from diamonds to wool. And in that room there is a meeting sometimes held between the residents of Achievement City, sans Michael and Gavin. And in those meetings, over time, there has accumulated a betting pool. 

The deciding factor is this: How long it will take Gavin to move into Michael’s house, and who will admit “it” first.

Michael only knows about this because Ray tells him too much, and he learned this about three months after they’d been living in the city. It has been over a year since then, and the bets have yet to come to fruition.

But Michael doesn’t care about the bets at all. He doesn’t care if Geoff sees the affection behind every (well, most. Some, at least,) insult Michael hurls Gavin’s way, and it doesn’t trouble him that Jack thinks that every time Gavin calls Michael “Mikey-Wikey,” that the intentions behind it are more than taunting and playful.

Michael couldn’t care less about what anyone thinks of how he feels for the idiot sitting next to him. 

But he would be lying if he said he didn’t hope they were right.

Gavin is his friend and comrade. Gavin drives him up a wall and has been on the receiving end of his fists and curses, as well as some of the best adventures in his life. Gavin makes him laugh and goads him into doing stupid things, and a few months into knowing him Michael realized that if things stayed like they were forever, he wouldn’t have a single complaint.

But Gavin is Gavin. Overly affectionate, takes his jokes too far, says things to people just to catch them off guard and get them flustered. He does it often and with pride, and over time it only became logical that when the boy would toss his arms around Michael’s shoulders or chant to him “My boy, my boy, my boy,” that it meant nothing more than what Gavin would want it to.

Michael wants “It” to be there, honestly. But he’s never taken the leap of having Gavin over and over telling him he’s his favorite, and responding that Gavin is his favorite too.

 

So now Michael doesn’t want to let himself hope. He doesn’t want to see Gavin pointedly avoiding him while also being glued to his side, not looking at him but sputtering over words. He doesn’t want his mind to chant, over and over again, “this is it, this is it, this is finally fucking it,”

But that’s exactly what he finds himself doing.

“What if…” Gavin says, a phrase Michael is long used to hearing. “What if when we went back, things weren’t…exactly, the same?”

Michael’s heart starts to pound. Oh God. This is it. He wants to cheer, he also wants to speed things along. He has been waiting so long for this, hoping that it was real. A very small part of him says just to spit it out first.

His tongue is sandpaper dry. “…what do you mean by that?”

He watches his words carefully. Moreover he watches Gavin and lets him map his own thoughts out in his mind and waits because when Gavin finally, finally says them Michael wants them to count.

Gavin pauses and takes in a small breath. The words are there, the weight of them hang in the air and Michael can almost hear them already and he wants them so, so badly. Gavin’s eyes meet his and there’s a sheepish happiness on his face that Michael smiles at.

“I mean… Oh! Gh-!”

In the span of seconds Gavin’s face, smiling but nervous and telling of the butterflies banging around his ribcage, all too quickly contorts to a look of horror. And it doesn’t take Michael long to realize that he’s looking over his shoulder, squawking in panic as he backs away on his palms.

Michael hears the hissing far too late, and in the time it takes for Gavin to yell his name fire explodes around his body. Pain bites through him, rock and gravel grind into his skin, the heat from the blast is everywhere. He’d pulled on light armor as he’d left that morning so the wounds aren’t deadly, but in within a heartbeat Michael’s world goes from the moment he’s been crossing his fingers for forever to the cold shock of river water flooding the bottom of the crater that the creeper caused.

“Son. Of a BITCH.” Michael snarls as his ears stop ringing.

“Michael?” Gavin’s voice floods the crater and the boy lifts his head from the water. “Michael, are you okay?”

“Just fucking dandy, Gavin.” Michael groans. 

He checks his arms and legs and body for holes or broken bones but finds he’s more or less unbroken. His head droops and water fills his nose.

A shadow appears over the lip of the crater and Michael reaches up, taking Gavin’s hand and letting himself be dragged out. Pinpoints of light still dance in his vision and he collapses on the greener earth, letting his head clear before he looks up at the boy sitting on the grass, frowning at him in concern.

“I fucking… told you that would happen.” Michael says after a pause. “You were all, ‘Let’s go out for a ride, Michael! It’ll be fun Michael!’ And I fucking said,”

“Hey, Michael?” Gavin says. Michael goes silent, allowing himself to be interrupted momentarily. 

“What Gavin.”

“You alright?” He asks. There’s such genuine worry in his voice that Michael rolls his eyes, taking inventory on his armor, his clothes and weapons. He nods.

“I’ll live. You?”

“Rattled all to hell, but still kicking.”

“Good. Now let me go back to yelling at you. This is why we don’t go out before the sun’s fully up, dipshit. Are you even listeni-”

“Michael.” Again.

“Ugh. What.”

“Grisham took off.”

Sure enough, as Michel lifts his head higher he can see the silhouette of Hidalgo nearby, watching warily but otherwise okay. Gavin’s horse however is nowhere to be seen, and Michael’s head falls to the dewy grass with a thud.

“Mother. Fucker.”

After a moment to compose himself Michael pulls himself to a standing position, his legs ache but they’re not too badly burned. He’ll be fine, he thinks, with a little medicine and time.

Gavin’s standing too now, trying to get close to Michael’s horse but failing as she backs away from his every advance. Michael can only laugh at him as he approaches and is far better receipted. 

“You’re dressed like a creeper, moron. No wonder she doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

“Oh, right.” Gavin takes off the scarf, it helps.

Michael checks her over quickly, whispering a quick thanks for being tough as nails before uttering a softer apology.

“Grisham probably headed back to the site.” Gavin says as he checks the area around them. “He always bolts there when he gets spooked.”

Michael interrupts him. “Your horse sucks, Gavin.”

“He does not.”

A beat.

“But they’ll be worried when only one horse comes back and no riders. We should probably get started back, especially if I’m gonna have to walk the whole way.”

Michael marches away from the both of them, dipping his arms and legs into the river to get off the worst of the powder and dirt. He splashes his face once then wipes off on his soaked jacket, and turns to give Gavin The Look of his life. Gavin flinches accordingly.

“No, it’s fine. You can ride back with me.” He says, shaking his head and his mop of muddy hair. “It’ll be really fun, I promise.”

His words are cold but Gavin smiles anyway, obviously swallowing a laugh.

“Are you sure she’ll be okay with two people?” He asks. Hidalgo eyes him up and down.

“Don’t worry about her. Hidalgo can handle anything thrown at her. Right, girl?” Michael asks. The horse doesn’t answer. “She says yes.”

Gavin chuckles and catches Michael’s wet hoodie when it’s tossed at him, packing it away in the horse’s saddlebag.

 

It’s no easy task, sitting two riders on a saddle made for one. Even with Michael scooted all the way up to the saddle horn Gavin is still close, his legs bumping Michael’s, his arm’s around Michael’s waist, his chest pressed full against Michael’s back. Once they get moving the boy in front is grateful that Gavin can’t see the bright red stain across his face that flares with every step and the way Gavin lurches into Michael’s form.

He breathes out slow.

Michael knows he can’t let it go. Not after he’s waited this long, not after they’d gotten so close. He fights back and forth with it, thinking about what Gavin would have said next back there, thinking of how he would have reacted. He stews in it while Gavin clings to him, and at one point Gavin yawns loudly before tucking his head into Michael shoulder and Michael almost bites clean through his lip.

He can’t let himself let it go.

Still, he keeps relatively quiet on the way back home all the same, the same old worry of being rejected and fucking up their friendship returning and rearing up in his mind. It’s not until they can just see the roofs of the houses up ahead that Michael speaks up, feeling Gavin stir from behind him.

“If you don’t want to hear about this for the next six months,” he says, “You’re welcome to hop off now and walk the rest of the way.” Gavin shifts behind him, his knees brushing against Michael’s legs.

“No.” Gavin says. “I don’t think I want to.”

“Oh.” This motherfucker. “Alright.”

Hidalgo carries on. And then.

It starts with a twitch of Gavin’s hand on Michael’s waist, and then a slight intake of breath. First Gavin tenses, and then he breathes out, a little fast, a little sloppy.

“You’re great, you know that Michael.” His voice is tight, words tumble out of his mouth like stones down a hill and Michael’s heart patters in his chest. “Uh, back there, before the creeper, I was gonna say…gonna ask, ask you-”

And that’s it. That’s the moment Michael decides he’s waited long enough.

Slowly one of his hands lets go of the reigns. The other one grips tightly but Michael’s fingers still inch closer to Gavin’s, hesitating just a little until they’re brushing Gavin’s knuckles. Gavin stops babbling, stops making any noise at all and instead allows Michael to take his hand. Gavin’s palm is warm and a little sweaty, but it grips his tightly as their fingers intertwine.

“It is about time,” Michael’s voice shakes out. He’s laughing, “you goddamn idiot.”

Behind him Gavin explodes into a fit of relieved giggles. Michael can feel Gavin’s grin on his shoulder and he’s staring down, disbelief is numbing his body but he’s hot, hot hot hot where Gavin is holding him. 

It was more worth it than he’d ever let himself think it would be and he didn’t even let Gavin finish his sentence.

 

By the time they make it back home none of the teardown is done due to their delay and it’s too late to begin. That, pared with the overworked horses and Michael’s injuries, set them back at least a day, maybe two. Geoff chews them out for it gratuitously and they apologize, but Michael can’t stop smiling and Gavin is so far past giddy that everything he says is punctuated by a squeak. 

After they’re scolded properly Geoff sends them off, leaving them to bandage up the worst of Michael’s wounds and get some rest. Michael plans to retire back to his home for some much-needed rest but he’s not at all surprised when Gavin tags along.

 

“So… how long?” he asks a little while later, sitting on the edge of his bed and surveying the fresh gauze that now spirals down his arm, leading to where Gavin’s hand covers his. The boy smiles.

“How long what? Have I loved you?”

“Jesus Christ.” Michael exhales. Love. The word makes his entire body hot. “I was gonna say how long did you wait to tell me, but fuck, sure, that too.” 

Gavin keens, grinning slyly. “Easy, the day I met you.”

“Bull _shit_.” Michael says.

“No, really! The first time I saw you I thought to myself that’s him, that’s my boi.”

Michael’s first instinct is to beat him over the head with words for waiting so long to say that, but he remembers all too quickly that he also had carried those words around with him for months and months and months. And sure enough a second later Gavin asks him, “What about you?”

“Well I can’t beat fucking _instantly_ , can I?”

“Well.” Gavin says biting his lip, “Maybe it wasn’t _instantly_. Maybe it was a few months later when you out-Mark-Nutt’d me to keep a skeleton off of me, and then I looked at you and felt all kinds of awful, funny things in my chest.”

“See?” Michael laughs. “That’s way better. And yeah, it was a couple of months after I met you when I was falling asleep one night and it hit me like a ton of bricks.”

Gavin hums at this, his fingers gripping Michael’s hand tighter. They’re both smiling but not looking at each other, like the reality is too fresh to face head on. Gavin ducks his head.

“We’re a couple of idiots, aren’t we?” He asks. “We could have gotten this over way long ago, and you wouldn’t have had to get blown up first.”

Shaking his head, Michael shrugs. “Yeah, I guess we are.” He doesn’t want to say getting blown up was worth it –it was not- but he’s still grateful all the same.

“So now…” Gavin’s voice is soft, “I guess when we go back to Achievement City, things won’t be the same at all, will they?” 

“No, I don’t think it will, Gavin.”

“I think I’m okay that.”

“Yeah, me too.”

There’s more they want to say, more that Michael’s sure will be said later on, but for now he’s sore and tired, and he gives Gavin’s hand a tight squeeze before shooing him out of his room, reminding him that he’s not used to not sleeping every night. Gavin just nods and smiles, staring at where he holds on to Michael like he’s reluctant to even let go. He grips his hand tightly one more time and then drops his arm. Gavin takes two steps forward and Michael is ready to put his arms up because he’s not there there yet, but Gavin only gives him a hug, planting a light kiss on his forehead. 

Michael pushes him off and tells him to get his sentimental ass out of his room and Gavin coughs out a laugh.

Just outside, Michael hears Ray’s voice and a second later Gavin’s replies. And while Michael isn’t sure of exactly what the boy says, (and this concerns him mildly,) what he gathers from their conversation that Ray agrees that it is about goddamn time, though he wishes they could have waited another week because now he owes Ryan a hell of a lot of diamond. Both of them can hear Michael laughing from inside the house.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: ௸


End file.
